


Bare Before You

by bigdisz



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:01:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22232200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigdisz/pseuds/bigdisz
Summary: Kylo Ren has just told Rey that he knows why the Emperor wants her dead. Her fear and confusion have pushed her to the breaking point.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 4
Kudos: 64





	Bare Before You

“I’ll come and tell you,” he says before the bond closes. 

Kylo’s words echo through Rey’s head. The Emperor Darth Sidious wants her dead. But why? Leia said the Emperor was destroyed on the Death Star over 30 years ago during the Battle of Endor. With her mind going parsecs per second, Rey settles on the Supreme Leader’s bed to think. Exhaustion hits her as she reclines her head to the pillow and closes her eyes. She needs to rest. She needs to regain her balance before facing Kylo Ren in person. 

Rey awakens to the familiar hiss of Kylo’s mask release. She rises from the pillow and watches as he sets it on the table next to the dagger. He hangs his cloak on the nearest chair then proceeds to approach her. Her guard is up until she observes him discarding his gloves finger by finger. Her adrenaline has lowered since their connection. She's eager for this question to be answered and knows that will be impossible if she were to take up arms against him again. 

“Ben?” she whispers.

He says nothing. Instead he takes a spot next to her on his bed; his gaze averted with hands splayed on his thighs. 

“Why does the Emperor want me dead?” she asks pointedly.

A pause.

“How can the Emperor want me dead if he himself was destroyed on the Death Star?”

“Rey. Sweetheart,” Ben responds after a moment in that calming way she hates to love. 

He turns and places his hand on her face. 

“The Dark Side is powerful. It can deceive even the most disciplined Jedi. Sidious is dead, but his phantom has managed to latch onto some semblance of life through the darkness. It wants to feed on the most powerful source of life in the galaxy to assure his resurrection.”

Rey looks at him in confusion.

“Us,” Ben softly murmurs as his thumb strokes her cheek.

“Us?” 

Ben gently hoists her into his lap. This action doesn’t surprise her, since he has held her like this many times in the last year. With their foreheads within an inch, Ben releases a rumble from the depths of his chest. 

“We are two in one, Rey.” 

“I don’t understand.” 

“The ancient texts foretell the return of the dyad.”

Rey pulls away from him slightly. 

“I’ve been studying the texts for a year now, and I’ve seen no mention of this dyad.” 

“The texts you’ve been reading come from the Jedi. A dyad is not a bond they would acknowledge, since it indicates a form of attachment to another.” 

Rey’s eyes dart from side to side in uncertainty as Ben continues.

“It’s a sacred bond between two force users as powerful as life itself. A dyad can consist of a Father and son. Brother and sister. Master and apprentice,” Ben’s voice chokes slightly. “A husband and wife.”

Silence washes over them. The only sound heard throughout the chamber are Rey’s heavy breaths of astonishment. 

“Through this bond, you can feel each other’s pains. Fears. Joys.” 

“Desires?” Rey interrupts.

Ben hesitates for a moment. 

“Yes. Desires. Sidious’s spirit senses this. The power our bond has,” he says as his forefinger brushes a curl from her face.

They gaze into each other’s eyes with a deep sense of hunger and longing. She's missed him so much. His warmth. His strength. His understanding. His patience. Their brief “meetings” this past year have not satisfied her desperation for him. He can taste her anticipation through their bond. He’s been waiting too.

She removes herself from his lap and steps away.

Ben frowns. 

“Rey.” 

Ben knows how sensitive she can be despite her tough exterior and strong spirit. And, he loves her for it. He rises from the bed and approaches her slowly. Rey responds with silence. By now, Ben stands directly behind her. His chest to her back. Her frustration hangs in the air and begs him to explain further. 

“He says you are his granddaughter and heir.”

Rey abruptly turns to face him. 

“That’s a lie!” she screams. 

Ben could feel her fear rising. He took her face in between his hands.

“I know it is. You saw who you are in the cave on Ach-To, and I saw your past when we first touched," Ben assures her. "Our bond doesn’t lie Rey, but the dark side is nothing but lies and deception.” 

“What could Sidious hope to gain from telling you this kind of lie, Ben?” 

He paces to the window, pauses and looks back to her. She has never looked more beautiful than she does now; face flushed and eyes full of fire. 

“He believes I want to eliminate any power that could challenge my reign as Supreme Leader, including the descendant of a powerful Sith.”

Rey’s eyes widen. 

“He believes my lust for power is so strong that I would even destroy my other half to keep it,” Ben grits out indignantly. 

Rey sucks in a breath as he takes purposeful strides to her. 

“He didn’t count on my lust for you.” 

Rey looks into his eyes, her pupils dilated. 

“...He didn’t count on my love for you.”

“Ben...I..I’ve,” Rey began with tears in her eyes. 

“Tell me, Rey,” he coos against getting forehead. 

“I’ve been having these dreams. Visions.” 

“What do you see?” he asks while wiping away a stray tear.

“I see darkness. I feel darkness. I’m on the throne of the Sith.” 

Ben rubs her arms in an encouraging manner.

“Sometimes, you’re at my side, ruling with me. Other times, you’re kneeling before me; awaiting execution. I hear a voice of malice demanding I kill you. It’s the same voice I heard that night on Starkiller when I almost... Do you think this phantom menace has been planting these visions too?”

Ben listens to her words, pondering the meaning of her visions. He paces to the table on which his mask is placed. Rey walks immediately after him and places her hand on his bicep. Ben looks down to her. 

“What is it, Ben?”

“I understand now,” Ben concludes. He runs his hand over the mask.

“You do?” Rey responds inquisitively.

Ben raises the mask with both hands and crushes it using brute strength and the Force. 

“The Emperor hoped we would turn against each other. Break our dyadic connection somehow.”

“If he would have gained control of our minds-," Rey thinks aloud. 

“He could have pushed us to destroy one another,” Ben says finishing her thought.

The painful reality struck them both simultaneously. 

“This discovery doesn’t change anything, Ben.” 

“Doesn’t it, Rey?” 

“You’re still Supreme Leader. My love, our connection doesn’t change that.”

“It changes everything, Rey.” 

“How? You’d have me rule beside you? You’d have me turn my back on the Resistance? On my friends? I don’t want that, Ben!”

“Do NOT pretend like you’ve found belonging there Rey,” Ben says in a slightly raised voice. 

Rey’s temper ignites. 

“You know nothing-”

“Spare me, sweetheart! I know you better than you know yourself. Better than my mother does. Better than Luke did. Better than “Finn” does. You don’t belong with the Resistance. You know in your heart you’re destined for more. We both do. You may not belong with the First Order, but you sure as hell belong with me...and I belong with you. We are stronger together.”

Rey had never seen Ben so passionate. Their chests heave in sync. Rey's tears threaten to spill once again. She is the first to speak.

“...You can come with me.”

“I can’t come back Rey,” Ben says helplessly. “My mother doesn’t want to see me.” 

Rey grabs his hands and pulls them to her chest.

“Yes she does. She’s never stopped hoping you’d return. I haven’t either. You’re right, Ben. I don’t belong with the Resistance. But, you don’t belong with the First Order either.” 

Ben gulped as though a rock were trapped in his throat. 

“It isn’t too late. Come with me, and we can figure all of this out together; the war, Sidious, us? Please.” 

Before Ben can answer, the alarm sensors to his exterior chamber door erupt. The lights begin to flash. Hundreds of trooper blasts hammer the door. 

“What’s going on?” Rey frantically questions.

“Mutiny.” 

That single word causes her gut to churn. They're here to kill him.

“It’s Hux.”

Ben moves Rey behind him, prepared to fight the incoming battalion. He knows she is more than capable of handling herself, but he couldn’t bear the thought of that weasel Hux touching her. 

“Ben.” 

He responds to her voice and looks into her doe eyes. He grabs the back of her neck wih his large hand. 

“We need to get to the Falcon.”


End file.
